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Old 07-14-2007, 07:59 PM   #1
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Interpretations?

Any one have any ideas what this songs maybe about? Any feelings? Thougts? Images? Post it up...
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Old 07-19-2007, 07:42 PM   #2
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Re: Interpretations?

This is what Undertow means to me:

I think the water symbolizes the subconscious mind. Heaven actually means "the sky" so we can see heaven being the conscious mind or the center of consciousness (the ego). We only know so much of heaven at first. It is quoted by Nietzsche that, “the tree that would grow to Heaven must send its roots to Hell”. This means that in order for wholeness to be possible we must coexist opposites. In order to know the light, we must experience the dark.

The voice seems to be a voice that’s coming from within.

The water is cold and black. From the speaker's conscious perspective the water is negative; it is the speaker’s shadow. He has fear of the unknown, of his shadow, of his own subconscious.

The undertow seems to appear when you ignore or fear what is hidden in the shadow a lot, your weakness seems to over power you. You get irritated, upset, and discouraged and enter that "pitiful hole". This opens up an undertow in your subconscious, the undertow takes you under flooding you with negative thoughts and you become conscious of these weaknesses within the subconscious.

What is actually going on here is that there is a death and rebirth of the ego. Instead of the ego being too focused on persona, you are performing self-sacrifice. This is similar to the story of the crucifixion of christ. “To take up one’s own cross would mean to accept and consciously realize one’s own particular pattern of wholeness. This invariably involves being suspended between successive pairs of opposites, with its attendant suffering, and repeated death/rebirth experiences of the ego as it learns to bow to the demands of the Self. (Edinger, Ego and Archetype. Taken from Carl Jung's idea of crucifixion of the ego.) This explains the whole, "Why don't you kill me" and "I'll die within your undertow" parts of the song.

Also, the speaker has been taken by the undertow a few times. Every time you get taken under your ego under goes some changes as you become more conscious of the subconscious. In a sense you are reborn every time the undertow takes you.

When you are getting sucked into an undertow you struggle to reach for the surface terrified of what the waters overpowering you would do. But you shouldn't be struggling for the surface because who knows what kind of treasures you could find within the water. The "shut up" part is the speaker upset in what he sees/hears within the subconscious because it is a truth that he doesn’t want to see/hear. He has the desire to bring himself back to the old way of how his center of consciousness was placed before. Here, I think we see the speaker identifying with the persona so much that he thinks the ego is the whole of his being, that it is his true self. He struggles to be back up on the surface when he should just let the undertow take him in order to become more conscious of the subconscious so that he may step closer to becoming his true self giving him that state of euphoria. In other words, his awareness of heaven increases.

Thats at least how I see it, it seems to relate with other songs on the album.
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Old 08-13-2007, 08:54 AM   #3
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Re: Interpretations?

Usually I make long posts, but this time, I just want to say that this one here, makes the most sense to me.
I've also though it to be about drugs or suicide, well in a way it is about suicide (of his ego), I guess....considerately killing me
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